LYSIANE GAGNON

In search of red flags in the
Shafia case

rom Monday's Globe
and Mail

Published
Monday, Feb. 06, 2012

Did Quebec’s social services fail the Shafia women? In hindsight, it’s easy
to say yes. But the real question is whether, at the time, there was enough
reason to remove the teenagers from their family.

Contrary to some press reports, there were no “repeated cries” for help. Over
the course of two years, the Montreal child-protection system was called only
twice. Each time, the social workers reacted promptly, but what they saw
provided no sign there was a child at risk. The Shafia girls were well-dressed
and healthy. They didn’t even wear veils. They hadn’t been molested. None of the
signs associated with child abuse (alcohol, drugs, sexual promiscuity) were
present.

Their basic complaint was that they were afraid of their father. But how many
teenagers growing up in repressive households aren’t? Another complaint – that
they didn’t have enough freedom – was again typical adolescent behaviour. And
two of the girls recanted their accusations – again, typical behaviour from
ambivalent immigrant kids caught in cultural and generational conflicts, torn
between rebellion and submission, anger at and love for their parents.

Much has been said about the fact that, at the time, Quebec had no
provincewide registry of the various agencies’ interventions. Would it have
raised a red flag if the second team of social workers had known of an earlier
intervention? This is far from certain; in Quebec at least, child protection
agencies and the courts are extremely careful when it comes to removing a child
from their natural environment. Breaking up a family and sending kids to foster
homes can be much more damaging than keeping them in a dysfunctional household.

In any case, who could have foreseen that a father could coldly engineer the
murder of three daughters? The only people who intuited that Mohammad Shafia
might have criminal intentions were relatives of his first wife, Rona Amir, who
had confided to her sister that she feared for her life, as well as relatives of
his second wife, Tooba Yahya, who’d testified they’d heard him say that Zainab,
the 19-year-old daughter, was a “slut” and that he wanted to kill her. They had
personal contact with the family and knew about the oppressive atmosphere in the
family home.

These people were from Afghanistan, and they knew about the “honour code.”
But even they apparently couldn’t envision the monstrous scenario that would
take place. A cousin of Zainab who lives in Montreal told the National Post that
the worst he feared for her was that she would be forcibly sent to Dubai.

These relatives, even with their knowledge of Afghan culture, couldn’t really
believe Mr. Shafia would act on his threats. But when they learned of the
“accident,” they instantly knew something was wrong, and Rona Amir’s sister
contacted police.

In the aftermath of the Shafia tragedy, the social agencies will undoubtedly
refine their ways of dealing with communities whose cultures are steeped in
medieval “honour codes,” but the people who can best prevent the repetition of
such crimes are those who live within these communities: friends, relatives and
community leaders.

SBowra said it very well, the primary cause in the
"failure" of Quebec child services to spot the problem was because they
"interviewed the children in front of the very people they feared".

It's not just Quebec, its across Canada that social workers interview the person
supposedly the victim in front of the supposed abuser, and again with the very
young children, they engage in interviews without any probability of success.
They write what they see, if a child is told by a controlling parent to make
statements, the child will make those statements and more often than not, the
allegations are false.

There is a country wide failure on the part of social workers to understand the
fact that a dysfunctional abusive psychopath or sociopath parent can appear to
be perfectly normal.

They can have a spotlessly clean house, the kids will be perfectly groomed and
red rosy cheeks indicating that they are well fed but behind the scenes, the
same parent can be a monster from hell, yelling and screaming in the kids ears,
ruling a reign of terror that means the child/ren will do what ever it takes to
keep that parent happy.

They grow up in lives of sheer terror and eventually become as dysfunctional as
the controlling abusive parent who may never leave a visible bruise and the
social workers have not got a clue on how to recognize the symptoms of a child
or spouse who is psychologically abused with endless put downs, derogatory
comments, verbal abuse, sadistic button pushing, sleep deprivation and all the
other forms of torture a parent can use and which MOST social workers are
incapable of comprehending often because they themselves are dysfunctional
personalities with personality disorders, pathological hatred etc.

The Sharia case should be an opportunity for Canadians to understand that in
Canada we have MALE SHARIA LAW, it means that children and fathers in Canada
have next to no legal rights.

Our government addresses the declining birth rate by raising the age of
retirement while failing to understand the primary causes of that declining
birth rate. Its because men are afraid of becoming parents, because as parents,
fathers effectively have NO legal rights.

Men, males are second class human beings and cannot seek justice from the
Corrupt Cess Pool of injustice called Family Court where the hatred towards men
literally oozes out of the walls.

Male Sharia Law has progressively gotten worse and its getting worse every day
with judges being brainwashed to regard fathers as unequal parents who are good
for nothing except fertilization of eggs and paying support.

That's Canada for you, a third world country with Male Sharia Law thanks to our
man hating judiciary and a government to gutless to say no to the demands of
extreme man hating feminists whose mission in life is the promotion of hatred
towards fathers.